Crow Indian artist Penni Anne Cross, (Alawa-sta-we-ches) was born in Washington state in 1939. She first studied with her portrait-painter mother, before beginning more formal studies in 1968.

Her work is commercially oriented, sentimentalizing her paintings of Native Americans of the Crow tribe. Cross' Crow name, "Alawa-sta-we-ches," means "Travels the Good Road." She currently (2003) lives and works in Montana.